Publisher DTP Crew

CAUTION! Protect your ears! This video is raw video and has not been rendered for even sound. At a couple of points, there are lound construction noises, and the dropping of metal. Don't use headphones to listen to this segment.

This is one of many short video segments which will be added to the Digital Tipping Point (DTP) archive. This interview features Tara Hunt, the founder of CitizenSpace, a collaboration space located at 425 2nd Street in San Francisco. It is an open work space which in many ways embodies the collaborative spaces in which Free Open Source Software is created and distributed. The DTP crew are following the story of CitizenSpace merely because it is a physical metaphor for the collaboration that happens in the virtual world of cyberspace.

Tara explains that most of the stuff we see being built here today was hauled over to CitizenSpace by herself and Elizabeth Norris, the manager of CitizenSpace. Tara estimates that she will have spend about $15,000.00 to $20,000.00 USD to renovate CitizenSpace and open it in its new location two floors down from its former location on the third floor. CitizenSpace is not making a profit yet, but Tara still believes that she is benefitting from the good will (Whuffie) that she is generating with supporting CitizenSpace.

She says that before CitizenSpace existed, it was hard to find space to do civic projects like Equality Camp, a mini-conference aimed at opposing California's 2008 Proposition 8, a ballot measure which successfully limited the rights of homosexuals to be formally married under State Law. If you wanted to rent a bar, for example, you had to guarantee an $8,000.00 USD bar tab, and pay $3,000.00 USD for rent for the place. The nearby Computer History Museum charged $10,000.00 minimum for a weekend. Raising those kinds of funds would have been difficult for a movement like Equality Camp.

Tara first found out about the new CitizenSpace space during her preparations for Equality Camp. She said that CitizenSpace has hosted events like CupCake Camp, and summits and meet-ups for technologically-minded people.

When asked to compare the way that CitizenSpace is built with the way that Free Open Source Software is built, Tara points out that neither of those things is free as in free beer (although Tara did give us free beer that day!). Tara says that the two things are similar in that everything that CitizenSpace does is posted on-line; and the residents of CitizenSpace share in the decision-making and control over the physical space at CitizenSpace, including such minutia as the color of the paint on the walls.

At the end of the segment, Tara says that almost everything she does is open source, which is sort of a sign of the coolness of open source software; Tara Hunt is a trendsetter of sorts, in that she was an early proponent of co-working spaces, and CitizenSpace has influenced other similar efforts elsewhere. Open source has clearly captured Tara Hunt's imagination and influenced her thinking on the creation of this physical shared space. Stickiness like this is one of the things that Malcolm Gladwell identified as the mechanisms that lead to tipping points, according to his book, "The Tipping Point: how little things can make a big difference".

This footage is our raw rough-cut footage. It lacks transitions, music, special effectsor finish rendering. It is our "source code". Please feel free to rip, mix and burn this footage consistent with our Creative Commons license as disclosed on this page.

If you like this segment, please consider typing up a summary for it and emailing that summary to Christian Einfeldt at einfeldt@gmail.com. Your work will be credited and posted on this page.

The DTP will be many, many films created by the global open source video community about how open source is changing their lives. We, the DTP crew, are submitting this footage for anyone to rip, mix, and burn under the Creative Commons Attribute - ShareAlike license. We welcome edits, transcriptions, graphics, music, and animation contributions to the film. Please send a link for any contributions to Christian Einfeldt at einfeldt@gmail.com.

Or, if you would like to contribute by directly transcribing this particular video segment, you can do so by going here:

http://digitaltippingpoint.com/wiki/index.php/Tape_593

and typing the audio as you hear it into the wiki. Please be sure to add the transcription for this segment under: Segment 006, Tara open source
You can find other ways to contribute by going to our wiki front page here:

http://digitaltippingpoint.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

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Contact Information Christian Einfeldt, einfeldt at g mail dot com